


Sticky Sweet

by FeelsForBreakfast



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:14:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelsForBreakfast/pseuds/FeelsForBreakfast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An extended love letter to midwestern summers where Louis will sleep with everyone but Harry and no one wants to think about the future. (summery fluff, thunderstorms, and happy endings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticky Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I just romanticized everything I love about summer and then plopped harry and Louis right in the middle of it because I'm back at school and it makes my heart sad.
> 
> also b4 i forget big special thankyou to Zara Larrysinlove for indulging my need for sweet summer fluff and then continuing to indulge me when it got weird and dark because she's the best. <333

Sitting on the rocky band of sand where the waves slide up against the beach, Harry thinks that midwestern summers are the only reason anyone can make it through the winters. It’s so hot that his skin feels stretched tight over his bones, a sunburn blooming against his shoulders even though he made Niall spray him down with sun screen about four times, but the day feels infinite and he doesn’t mind at all.

Louis is busy goading Liam and Niall further into the freezing water, yelling something about how ‘it’s not so bad once your legs go numb’ while lazy waves lap over his shoulders. Sun and sand have always agreed with him, making his skin golden and pink and his hair a softer chestnut.

“I’m freezing my dick off!” Niall yells back at him, hopping up and down in the water, his hands stuck in his trunks. 

“I’ve never been so pleased to not know how to swim.” Zayn says as he comes up behind Harry, taking a dainty sip from his lemonade. 

Harry rolls his eyes, patting the sand in an invitation to sit. “That’s a bullshit excuse. It’s like, four feet deep. You’re just a wuss.”

“I’m not a wuss, I just have more brain cells than those three idiots.” Zayn says, sitting down with a rather uncoordinated thump, flinching when a wave comes up to his toes. “Fuck the water’s freezing.”

“It’s a big lake, it’s barely July.” Harry replies, splashing his feet in the water. “It’ll be tolerable by August.”

“And then it’ll freeze and we’ll start the cycle again.” Zayn says morosely, digging his toes deep in the sand. “Why can’t it be seventy degrees all the time?”

“Because then the plants would be sad.” Harry supplies. Weather of any kind does not agree with Zayn. Harry is fairly sure he’s annoyed at the sky a good 98% of the time. “They need winter so they can rest.”

“They’re plants, Harry. Not children.” Zayn replies, kicking a bit of sand at him. 

Harry makes a face at him. “Trees need sleep too, Zayn.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “And I was pretty sure I needed new friends in 8th grade but here we all are five years later.”

Harry leans himself up against Zayn, throwing his arms out in some approximation of a hug. “Friends foreverrrr.”

“Come in boys, the water is fine!” Louis interrupts from his place near the buoy, holding his arms out wide. “You can work on your tan after you swim!”

“You going in?” Zayn asks, untangling himself from Harry’s arms.

Harry shrugs. “Probably. I do everything else he asks, don’t I?” It doesn’t mean to come out bitter but it does. 

There’s a moment where Zayn just looks at him, because if anyone knows it’s Zayn, but he’s not going to say anything and Harry trusts that. 

“Doesn’t everyone?” Zayn asks, with that too wise look on his face, because they’re all wrapped up in Louis and his light and Harry has always had it the worst, ever since Louis moved into the house next to him when they were ten and crawled into his life and never crawled out. 

“Yeah.” Harry replies, heaving himself up and brushing the sand off of his legs. “You can’t say no to Louis.”

Zayn shakes his head, leaning back on his elbows and pushing his legs out into the shallows, a smile on his face. Zayn is the best really, he’s slow and soft and he understands things without words. “He wouldn’t be Louis if you could.”

Harry kicks water at him because he doesn’t have any better answer to that, looking over at where Louis is holding court in the deeper water. 

“I’m coming in!” He yells, and wades out to meet him. 

 

xx

 

“I want to go up in the treehouse.” Louis tells him from his place on Harry’s floor. They’d fallen asleep there the night before, curled up in blankets on the carpet since neither of them could remember whose turn it was for the couch. 

“But I’m eating fritos.” Harry tells him, digging his hand into the bag and watching Finn and Jake talk to Princess Bubblegum.

“You can bring the bag outside you dummy.” Louis tells him, poking him in the side until he can’t keep the giggles inside. “Come on, Curly. Up. We’ve got things to do.”

“What things?” Harry asks, trailing him in nothing but sleep pants that don’t quite brush his ankles, hand still in the bag of chips. 

“Important things.” Louis tells him as he pulls Harry out the back, the screen door crashing shut behind him. They cross over into Louis’ yard, wandering through the dew wet grass and climbing up the rungs of the ladder. The wood is cool underneath their hands because the sun hasn’t warmed up the Earth yet, the morning still and limitless around them. 

Harry still remembers the weekend they spend building the tree house, one of the first things they did the first summer after Louis moved in. Their moms had put up most of it while Louis’ grandfather had tried to keep Harry, Louis and the girls out of trouble. He thinks the treehouse was probably built with Louis’ sisters in mind, but somehow it had been become a secret clubhouse Harry and Louis ruled over like kings. 

They didn’t go up there so much anymore, not after they got older, but he could still remember all the nights they’d spent curled up in their sleeping bags, comic books and card games littering the floor as they giggled ghost stories late into the night.

He sticks the bag of chips in his mouth and follows Louis up, careful to keep his eyes on the rungs so he doesn’t get distracted. Louis is a prince of distraction, all sparkling eyes and curves that make Harry’s chest ache. 

Louis, perched at the entrance of the tree house, taps his hands on the floor in impatience. “Think you could move that ungainly body of yours a little faster, darling?”

Harry mutters something distinctly unkind back at him as he pulls himself up, the words muffled by the chip bag. Harry settles against the wall, reaching his long legs out across the floorboards and running his eyes over the doodled walls, the place where they’d carved their initials that first afternoon.

“Can’t believe that hasn’t worn yet.” Harry says, pointing his fingers at the letters. “Feels like we wrote it there forever ago.”

Louis grins, settling down at the wall opposite. “Friendship is forever, Harry.” And he recognizes Louis’ kidding tone but there’s something sincere in his eyes.

“So are My Chemical Romance lyrics apparently.” Harry says, pointing above Louis’ head where Will you defeat them, your demons? is written in black sharpie.

Louis laughs, clutching his hand to his heart. “Such young tortured souls we were.”

“I’ll have you know I’m still young and tortured.” Harry says, shoving another chip into his mouth with a grin. 

“Sure you are.” Louis says, leaning over to give his foot a consoling pat. 

“I’m gonna miss this place.” Harry says, running his hand across the time weathered floorboards. He hopes Louis understands the part he doesn’t say. I’m gonna miss you.

Louis nods, looking out into the yard. Harry can’t tell if he’s genuinely admiring the view or if he just can’t meet Harry’s eyes. “I’m going to miss this. I can’t believe all you guys are going so far for school.”

“Zayn’s only an hour away.” Harry tells him, but its an empty sort of reassurance because he’s still leaving and Louis is still here and even though they’ll be able to take the train to see each other every weekend he knows it still feels like abandonment.

“I hate college already.” Louis says, making a face. “Don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”

Harry shakes his head, toeing Louis’ foot with his own and wishing he had a better way to make him smile. “You’re going to go to cool parties and have cool friends and I’ll have to get in line to make an appointment with you so you can come up and visit me.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Louis says, staring up at the glow in the dark stars they tacked to the ceiling in an approximation of the constellations. “I just don’t want to let you guys go.”

Louis says the words like they doesn’t mean anything but Harry can feel them sharp in his chest all the same. “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily, Tommo.”

“Good.”

 

xx

 

His neighborhood is all brickwork and old trees and power lines that criss cross under their branches, and when they lose power they lose it for days. It went out on Thursday after a thunderstorm that lashed at the windows like some transplanted hurricane and by the small hours of the morning on Saturday it still hasn’t come back on. They’d all spent the day at Zayn’s house, Harry and Louis taking advantage of his below ground power lines to charge their phones. 

Harry wants to go to sleep, knows it’s far too late to be up, but his entire body feels sticky and he just can’t do it, so he’s sitting on his bed playing animal crossing with the last bit of charge in his DS. 

When he and Louis were younger and the power would go out they would sit on the little bits of their roof that hang just too close and talk until the night grew cool enough to sleep or the power jolted back on. Louis used to joke that their houses were best friends too, leaning into each other so they could whisper about all the other buildings. 

The ledges are empty tonight.

He knows Louis is out somewhere, at some party he’s cool enough to get invited to because he’s fun and charismatic and everyone knows he’ll sleep with anyone who smiles at him right. That doesn’t stop Harry from hoping that maybe if he crawls onto the patch of roof he’ll find him waiting. If he doesn’t check he can pretend he’s out there.

He looks up when he hears a door open, hears footsteps through his open window and knows Louis is home. Dreads it in a way, because he comes home with smoke and alcohol and the smell of other people hanging off of him and Harry wants to wash him clean until he smells like soap and Louis again. 

“Haz?” The whispers comes, just like he knows it will, and he shuts off his game, looking up to find Louis pushing himself through his window. “Oh good, you’re awake.”

“And you’re drunk.” Harry replies, leaning up against the wall and just looking at him.

“Only a little.” Louis says, shucking off his shoes and pulling his shirt over his head. Louis is a paradox because he knows he’s beautiful, knows he can wrap the world around his finger, but he also lives like he wants to tear himself apart. “Any room for me?”

“It’s too hot to cuddle.” Harry says, because he always tells himself he won’t do this anymore, let Louis into his bed and his arms and give him the opportunity to tear him apart all over again. He feels like he’s always trying to put himself back together, trying to find the parts of him Louis took and threw to the winds. He still can’t figure out why Louis keeps coming back in the first place, why he can’t find someone else’s heart to break, why it’s always Harry.

“It’s too quiet to be alone.” Louis replies, creeping across the wood floor that creaks and sliding onto the mattress, the covers pushed back since it’s so hot. 

“Yeah I guess.” Harry says, even though he can smell the sweat on Louis skin and something flowery that makes him want to throw up. “Why didn’t you just stay at her house then?”

“Whose house?” Louis asks, like he thinks Harry hasn’t noticed, like he thinks maybe Harry is too stupid to know. 

“The girl you slept with. I can smell her on you.” He says, and he usually ignores this, lets Louis curl up beside him and hopes that if he holds him tight enough he’ll smell like Harry instead, but it’s silent outside and his brain is too loud and it spills out before he can stop it.

Louis looks startled for a moment, staring over at Harry from his place on the mattress. He’s barely lit up, the night so dark around them and Harry could kiss him if he leaned forward, could mold their mouths together in the sticky nighttime heart and end this. But he won’t. He never does. “How do you know I slept with her?”

Harry shrugs, looking down at his hands because he can’t look at him, even in the dark. “Are you telling me you didn’t?”

“Why does it matter to you?” Louis asks, a defensive edge to his voice. They’ve had this conversation a million different ways, because everything Louis does matters to him, but he can’t say that. He doesn’t own Louis, Louis isn’t his no matter how much he wants him to be.

Harry shakes his head, and he wants to reach out and touch him at least, to hold his hand and tell him he’s sorry that they’re like this sometimes, that at night he can’t always forget the way Louis feels like the poison and the cure. “It doesn’t matter.”

Louis doesn’t move for a long moment, even after Harry lays down on his side and pretends like maybe he’ll be able to fall asleep. “Do you remember when the power used to go out when we were younger we’d sneak out onto the roof and just talk?”

Harry nods, because of course he remembers. He remembers everything with Louis just a little brighter because Louis set his world on fire and he can’t give him up. He’s the best thing to ever happen to Harry and he makes him feel like he’s burning up inside because he just wants to love him, wants to kiss him like everyone else can. Sometimes he wonders why he’s the only one Louis doesn’t seem to want to fuck, why he’ll give himself up to anyone but he won’t let Harry hold him. 

“I liked that. Everything felt so much clearer. Like the world was still.” Louis says, and there’s something in his voice Harry can’t place. Nostalgia maybe, something like an apology. “It always felt like everything was more important on those nights. Like everything held more weight.”

“We should sleep.” Harry replies finally, because this is feeling too much like a confession and he doesn’t know who’s confessing what anymore, doesn’t want to give all his secrets up yet. “It’s late.”

Louis nods, laying down carefully on Harry’s twin bed so he doesn’t touch him, the springs creaking like they’re greeting him. “Goodnight, Hazza.”

“Goodnight Lou.” He replies, and he’s facing the wall but he’s so aware of Louis behind him it hurts, wishes he could turn around and see his face. 

He’s only laid down for a few moments when he feels Louis move behind him, feels his clumsy limbs as he crawls over Harry to get near the wall, flopping back down on the bed and smiling over at him. “I didn’t like that side.”

Harry smiles back, watching the way Louis’ eyes sparkle in the dark. He thinks some part of him has always been in love with Louis, and that some part of him always will be, even though he’s never really had a chance at anything more than just watching him in the dark. 

They fall asleep eventually, only waking up in the early morning when the power comes back on and the air conditioning kicks back up, white noise setting all their stillness back into motion. 

 

xx

 

Louis wakes up with his face pressed into Harry’s neck and he feels sticky and sad and too cold in the air conditioned morning. Harry is still asleep, his face buried in the wrinkled cotton pillow, hair a mess around his face. Louis knows he should slip out, but he can’t stop looking at him in the cloudy morning light. He can’t tell what time it is but morning is still stuck to his bones and he just wants to hold him. 

In sleep he looks ten years old again, just as unbroken as the first time Louis saw him through his window. Louis thinks he’s always going to remember him that way, bright and smiling because no one had hurt him yet, because he’s still the most genuine person Louis has ever met.

He knows he owes it to Harry to leave him, but for now he can’t, can barely think as he reaches down to pull the sheet up over their heads, covering them in soft white fabric. They’ve stepped out of the world for a while, into that pocket of morning that’s still meant for sleeping, and Louis wants to stay underneath this blanket forever, in the place where what he’s capable of doesn’t matter. 

He stays there long enough for the blanket to come to rest around them, burying them in cotton like the bones of the lovers those archeologists dug up, still wrapped in each other long after their flesh returned to the dirt. He wonders why he so often compares these sort of things to dying.

His mind won’t stop whirring, won’t let him fall back asleep next to his boy, so he slips out without a word, his footsteps lost in the buzz of the air conditioner and the soft chirping of birds.

The world is once again loud enough to drown out his quietest thoughts.

 

xx

 

It’s the warm twilight time just before day tips into night and they’ve ended up in Zayn’s tiny front yard, lounging on a picnic blanket that really isn’t big enough for all of them to fit on. 

Jade has her head in Harry’s lap and she keeps sneaking m&ms out of the bag she’s stashed in her purse and tossing them in the vague direction of his mouth because she is a chocolate angel. Perrie is playing DJ, having completely taken over Zayn’s speakers with her hippy dippy music, and they lost Liam inside on a quest to locate the chocolate covered pretzels Zayn is positive exist somewhere in his pantry.

“Look! Firefly!” Louis exclaims, throwing his arm out in the direction of the yellow green spark, nearly hitting Jesy in the face.

She directs his arm back in the direction of the ground. “If you give me a black eye because you’re excited about little light up bugs I’ll personally kick your ass.”

Louis makes a face at her. “You’re just a bitter old hag who can’t properly appreciate light up bugs.”

She shrugs her shoulders, leaning over to pat him on the head, squishing his precious hair style down. Harry knows from living next to him for eight years just how long that hair style takes, and manages to prepare for the screech of rage that follows. 

“Play nice!” Perrie yells from her place by the speakers.

Louis just sticks his tongue out, standing up with only a bit of a huff. “I’m going to catch fireflies. Who’s with me?”

There’s a moment where no one stands, before Zayn hauls himself to his feet. “I’m in, I appreciate small lighty bugs.” He’s got the smile that Harry loves on his face, the one he saves for when he’s surrounded by people he cares about. 

Harry pulls himself up, holding his hands out to Jade. “Lighty bugs?”

She smiles, taking his hands and letting him pull her up too. “Lighty bugs!”

As he stands in the near darkness, looking at the faces of people he’s loved for more years than he can completely keep track of, he realizes he’s completely terrified for college, for leaving them behind. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do without them in his classes, without Louis sneaking through his window, without Jade trying to paint his fingernails or Zayn blasting his crappy R&B music in his mom’s minivan. He doesn’t want the american dream, he wants to stay in this one and never wake up. 

Harry stares out into the evening, watching for a blip of green and finding one over by the tiny oak in the corner of Zayn’s lawn. He heads off after it, hands outstretched.

It’s hard to catch, and it nearly slips out of his grasp until he leans out far enough into the garden and traps it. He can feel the bug inside his hands, fragile legs crawling against his palms.

“I got one!” Louis yells from the middle of the street, holding his clasped hands upward. He runs towards Harry, that odd little gallop he did when he was ten and never grew out of. “Haz, look!”

Harry does, peering down into his hands, small fingers and tanned palms that house a tiny bug inside. “I caught one too, see?” He eases his hands open so Louis can look, smiling when Louis peers through the tiny gap between his fingers, letting out a delighted noise. “It lit up!”

“Fireflies do that.” Harry replies, raising his hands to his eye to try and see the glow as well.

“I’m going to call mine Winnifred.” Louis says, standing next to Harry and looking across the yard where the rest of their friends are chasing after fireflies and each other.

“That’s a lovely name. Mine can be Janice.” Harry says, smiling fondly down at the little bug caught in his hands. “They’re bug friends.” He says, opening his hands and pushing them against Louis’, letting Janice crawl onto Louis’ wrist.

Louis smiles bright, opening his hands and letting the bugs crawl around on his palm. “Best bug friends.”

“Look, they’re playing.” Harry says, nudging them closer to one another. 

“Don’t push them around.” Louis says. “They’re ladies.”

“I’m sorry bug ladies.” Harry says very seriously, blowing the two fireflies in Louis’ hand a kiss. “Better?”

Louis smiles, nodding. “We should let them fly away. They can’t find mates if we keep them here.”

“Maybe they’re each other’s mates.” Harry says. “Maybe we helped them find each other.”

Louis has that look on his face, the unguarded one with the smile he tries to fight that’s for Harry. He isn’t quite sure when he started to recognize the things that were special between them, between all of them, the words that they saved for each other, the places that weren’t for anyone else. They created something special together, a string of things that couldn’t really be shared, only felt. “I bet we did. We should let them fly away. Be together.”

Louis blows against his palm, pushing the two fireflies back into the muggy night, their wings taking them into the air, each glowing a soft pulse as they sneak into the garden. 

“Bye buggies.” Harry says, waving in the direction they’d gone, leaving him and Louis in the corner of the yard by the oak tree, small green bugs and the hollers of their friends the next yard over the only indication that they aren’t alone.

“I miss them already.” Louis says, throwing a hand over his heart. 

“I think this means we have to catch new ones.” Harry says, scanning the yard for tiny green lights. 

“I think you’re right, Mr. Styles.” Louis replies, flashing him a grin and heading over to the strip of grass on the other side of the garden, holding his hands out again. 

Harry watches him, thinking about the way fireflies light up to find each other, to make sure they aren’t alone. He thinks people are like that in a way, trying to find their own lovers in the evening light. 

Fireflies only live for a week or two, and sometime it feels like he’s going to live like that too, like his life is slipping away before he can get his bearings, like he’s running too slowly to keep up with time.

He thinks about Louis and the way his blue eyes flash in the dark, blinking out a message he wishes he could read, if only so he could send one back. 

 

xx

 

Harry and Louis are standing in front of the enormous frozen yogurt bar, cups held in tanned hands as they try to pick flavors. Harry can feel sand under his feet in his flip flops and his hair is still wet with lakewater, but he feels warm, his skin steeped in the morning sunlight.

“I think I’m going strawberry.” Harry says, tapping his long fingers against the rim of the pink bowl. 

“Strawberry’s a gamble.” Louis says, cocking his hip out and peering closer to the adorable illustration cards. “It either tastes terrible or like a gift from god.”

“I don’t know if that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Harry says seriously. “I was thinking, if I were frozen yogurt what flavor do you think I would be?”

Louis turns away from his careful surveillance of the flavors to give Harry a truly spectacular look. “Where do you even come up with questions like that?”

Harry shrugs, a smile alighting on his face before he can help it. “I bet you’d be lemon. Maybe a little bit of watermelon, a touch of vanilla?”

Louis pouts, jabbing Harry in the side with his cup. “I’m not fruity and I’m not vanilla!”

Harry rolls his eyes, because Louis is one of the most camp people he’s ever met, and if he isn’t fruity, Harry doesn’t know who is. “You are definitely lemon. Which is less of a fruit and more, you know, citrus.”

“Lemons are fruits. As are watermelons. And why would you call me vanilla? Do you think I’m a vanilla person, Harry? Because I can argue that with points you won’t want me to bring up while we’re eating.” Louis says, and for a moment Harry thinks Louis is actually going like, snap at him in the Z formation or something.

“I said a touch of vanilla. Because you’re tart like lemon and watermelons remind me of summer, but you’re also, you know, sweet and simple. Like vanilla.” Harry says, and he started blushing around watermelon and is fairly sure his face is falling somewhere closer to tomato by the time he reaches vanilla. He is going to blame it on a sunburn, which may be a direct effect of prolonged exposure to Louis Tomlinson’s smile. 

Louis just stares at him for a long moment, a strange sort of grin on his face. “That’s the sweetest, most convoluted way I think you’ve ever given me a compliment, Harry. Bravo.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to be nice.” Harry replies, trying to hide behind his little froyo bowl so Louis won’t poke him anymore. Not that he really minds Louis touching him, but he likes to pretend he does. 

“I think you’re strawberry.” Louis says, after a pause just long enough for Harry to assume the subject was dropped. 

“But you just said that strawberry was a gamble!” Harry exclaims. “You just explicitly told me not to get strawberry, you’re the worst best friend ever.”

Louis shakes his head, tossing his bowl up in the air and catching it before it can fall to the ground. “I didn’t tell you not to get it. I told you it was a gamble because you don’t know if it will be terrible or the best thing ever.” He’s doing that vaguely evasive thing where he won’t completely meet Harry’s eyes.

“Not really understanding the metaphor.” Harry says, poking him in the side to try and lighten the mood. “You should have just said chocolate because I’m sweet.”

Louis rolls his eyes at that. “You are the farthest from chocolate.”

“Am not!” Harry protests. “I’m so chocolate. Maybe even dark chocolate.”

“No way.” Louis replies. “The strawberry is perfect. It’s pink and sweet just like you.”

“I think you might have also mentioned the words ‘gift from god’ earlier.” Harry adds as he steps forward, resting a hand on the handle of the lemon. “Which I am.”

Louis smacks him on the ass. “You’re lucky I’m distracted by frozen yogurt.”

Harry just grins, sliding past him to get at the oreo bits and rainbow sprinkles. “What a lovely thing to be distracted by.” 

The tiny bell on the door rings, Zayn, Niall and Liam pushing into the store and waving when they spot the other two. They hadn’t made it to the beach earlier, leaving Louis and Harry to run around in the warm sand and tan on sandy towels without them.

“You started without us!” Liam says in mock offense, grabbing a cup from the stacks. “How very dare you.”

“They’re the worst friends, Li. The absolute worst friends.” Zayn agrees, getting a cup of his own.

Harry ignores them while he pays, claiming one of the couches in the back. Louis joins him after a minute, setting his legs up on the cute little coffee table like he owns the place, spooning frozen yogurt into his mouth. 

“So what did you get then?” Niall calls from over the wall of yogurt.

“Lemon.” Harry supplies, a sweet sour drip sliding down his chin. “It’s really good, refreshing.”

“I got strawberry.” Louis adds. “Tastes like the real thing.”

“Gamble paid off then?” Harry asks, nudging Louis’ knee with his own.

Louis shrugs, shoving another spoonful into his mouth. “I guess you could say that.”

Harry fights a smile and doesn’t think about the metaphorical implications of frozen yogurt.

 

xx

 

Jade is braiding her hair on her bed in her sports bra, socked feet tucked underneath her, Louis laying down beside her. They’re both a little drunk, Louis’ bottle of emergency booze making them clumsy and handsy.

Louis rolls against her side, knocking against her leg. “I’m so tired.”

Jade nudges him with her knee, giving him a lazy little smile. “You’re always tired. You need to sleep more.”

Louis shakes his head. “Sleeping is boring.”

Jade leans down, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “Heaven forbid you’re bored for even a moment.”

“I don’t like being bored.” He replies, screwing his face up into a pout. 

Jade stares down at him for a long moment, trying to understand why he always ends up dragging her back here. Louis is a bit of a dangerous person with all his charisma, in his ability to wrap people around his fingers, and she thinks he knows, thinks it scares him a little bit. 

“I know you don’t.” She says, wrapping the hair tie around the end of her blue dyed hair. 

“I don’t want this summer to end.” He says suddenly, closing his eyes and turning so he’s laying on his back. “I don’t want to go to college. I have no clue what I’m doing.”

Jade sighs, sliding down so they’re both laying next to each other, reaching for his hand so she can thread their fingers together. “You’ll be okay, Lou. Everyone always loves you.”

He sighs, fingers clammy in hers, the room too hot even with the windows thrown open for the breeze. “Yeah I know.” There’s a long pause where the only sound is their breathing and the rustle of trees outside her window. “But I don’t want that, you know? You guys are all going to go to cool places and make new friends and I’m going to be here.”

She sighs, curling into his side because she feels lonely all of a sudden. She’s going to Iowa, not the furthest, but far enough that she can’t walk to Jesy’s house when she wants to marathon Friends or have Perrie dye her hair whenever she gets bored of it. “I don’t want to make new friends.”

“Me neither.” Louis says. “I wish I could go with all of you.” They all know Louis couldn’t afford to go further than the community college, an open secret they don’t talk about, because it’s not fair, he’s the best out of all of them, the one who could do so much, but with four sisters and a single mother he couldn’t go anywhere else.

“Me too, love. We’ll skype. I’ll send you a million pictures.” She says, and she’s never meant anything more. She wants to carry them all around in her pocket and video chat them all the time, just to sit in their presence. She feels homesick and she hasn’t even left yet. She knows even now that it’s not going to be her bed she misses so much as the people who made themselves at home on it.

“Jadesy.” Louis says quietly. “I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

“We should go watch a movie. Our dumb friends might be around.” She says, knowing what he’s going to do before he does it. Louis is predictable that way, because he’s so strong and just fine until he’s not. 

He sits up and leans down to kiss her, eyes hopeful and lips soft. Louis is the best for random hookups, he does it for his own selfish reasons and he’s sweet afterwards and it’s not messy. Except it is. She indulges him for the smallest moment, letting him push a leg between her thighs, reaching up to hold his face in her hands. 

“Louis, I told you I don’t..” She starts, his breath in her mouth. He’s pretty, he’s the most beautiful human being she’s ever met but this has always felt like cheating. It was okay when she didn’t know for sure, when she could pretend Louis didn’t belong to someone else, but it was never about anything more than a quick fuck for them anyway. “It feels wrong now.”

“You know it’s just to forget.” He says, leaning down to press a quick kiss to her jawline. “Why is it such a big deal?”

“Because it not fair to him.” She says, and she doesn’t know how to say this without hurting him, because they’ve never talked about any of it in concrete terms and she doesn't think he understands how obvious it all is. “Don’t make me spell it out for you, babe.”

“Spell what out?” He asks, sitting up so he isn’t quite so agonizingly close anymore, sitting between her legs with a pout resting on his lips, a peculiar kind of desperation in his eyes like he’s hoping she won’t say it. 

“You’re in love with Harry and he’s in love with you, but you won’t let him be.” Louis starts to say something back, denials bubbling up on his lips but she doesn’t let him. “Don’t tell me you don’t Louis, I’m not fucking blind. You’ve been after each other forever and for the longest time I was sure you didn’t know how gone you were for each other, kept waiting for you to figure it out and get together but you didn’t.”

“Please don’t yell at me.” He says quietly, looking down at his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. She feels abruptly bad, because they’re idiots but she knows somewhere that Louis never meant to hurt him. That somehow this whole thing, this whole fucking convoluted thing boils down to not hurting Harry. 

“I’m not yelling at you.” She says softly, reaching for his hands and holding them in hers. 

He nods, looking back up at her, something strong returning to his posture. “Harry knows why we can’t be together.”

Jade just looks at him, a sad sort of smile on her face. “No he doesn’t. I don’t.”

Louis shakes his head, like he doesn’t want to believe her. “He’s leaving and I’m staying here.”

“That’s it?” She asks, because it’s so simple all of a sudden. Louis doesn’t want Harry to feel tied back here, wants him to go off to college and find someone else. (someone better, she knows, but that could never be true because Louis is the best thing to happen to all of them, the sun they all orbit around without thinking.) 

He doesn’t want to be left behind.

“It’s enough.” Louis says, looking all emptied out.

“He wants you.” She says, holding his hands like kite strings, keeping him bound to earth. “You can rationalize it all you want but he doesn’t want some college boy. He wants you.”

He ducks his head into his chest. “Fuck. Can we watch a rom com or something?”

She nods, sitting up and sliding out from underneath him. “The Notebook or Love Actually?”

He shrugs, helping her off the bed and not letting go of her hand as they stumble down to the empty family room. “Those are his favorite movies. He’s such a fucking sap.”

She just kisses him on the cheek, pulling him down on to the couch. “Just think about what I said.”

He doesn’t respond, curling against her side without a word. She knows it’s the only answer she’s going to get.

 

xx

 

Louis knocks on the garage door of Nick’s house. Of Nick’s parent’s house, because Nick is living in their garage while he writes his Great American Novel. It’s very starving artist. 

“Nick open up, I know you’re in there.” He grumbles, kicking the door with his foot. He doesn’t know what time it is, only knew that he couldn’t sleep over at Jade’s and he couldn’t go home. He wants to sleep with someone, wants someone to kiss him and tell him he’s so, so pretty. 

He's afraid if he goes home he’ll end up kissing Harry, doesn’t know if he’s ready for that. Jade’s words are still swimming in his head, but he can’t make sense of them, doesn’t want to believe them just as much as he wants them to be true. He wants Harry, he’s known that for long enough that it’s less like a thought and more like an integral part of himself, but he also knew why this was better for both of them. He thought they both knew, but he’s not sure about much anymore.

The side door to the garage cracks open as Louis kicks the big door for the second time. Nick sticks his head out, hair a mess, stubble dark on his cheeks, making him look rumpled and gorgeous.

“Any particular reason you’ve woken me up, darling?” He asks, voice rough with sleep. He’s only in his briefs, the cool summer night sending a shiver down his back. 

“I want you to fuck me.” Louis says simply, because Nick hasn’t ever been able to resist him. No one can, given the right sort of persuasion. He knows this. 

Nick raises his eyebrows, not moving from the barely cracked door.

“So?” Louis presses, sticking his hands in his pockets and scuffing his foot against the pavement.

Nick seems to deliberate for a moment, pulling his hands through his sleep mussed quiff. “Well don’t stand out there. The neighbors might talk. Strange boys in my driveway in the wee hours of the morning and all that.”

“I’m not a strange boy.” Louis says, hurrying up his driveway, slipping in through the doorway into the dim light of Nick’s garage. The fairy lights he hung up have started to go out in random places, but everything else is just how he remembers it; mattress in the corner, desk near the back, coffee table in the center. “How’s the novel coming?” He asks, toeing his shoes off by the oriental rug Nick has spread out over the concrete. 

“You don’t have to pretend you want to make small talk with me.” Nick grins, closing the door with a click and coming up behind him, leaning down to rest his chin on Louis’ shoulder. “We have to be quiet. Don’t want to wake anyone up.”

“Romantic.” Louis says, reaching for Nick’s hands and pressing them underneath his shirt.

“Never promised you romantic, babe.” Nick whispers against his ear, and Louis hums happily under his breath. Nick is no strings attached, he’s grimy and pretty and Louis wonders if this is destructive, if he’s trying to destroy himself.

“Never asked for it.” Louis replies, turning around and pulling Nick into a kiss. Nick kisses like he’s trying to take something, lazy tongue and stubble that rubs against his chin. 

Nick backs him towards the mattress, pushing him down with strong arms, and Louis likes this, likes that he doesn’t have to think, that he can let Nick take care of him. Nick has big hands and they cover Louis’ body and help him wriggle out of his clothes until he’s naked on the sheets, and Louis thinks about another boy with big hands and hair that curls at the ends. 

“You’re so beautiful.” Nick murmurs, mouthing at his neck, hands traveling his waist.

Louis wraps his fingers into Nick’s hair, breathing going heavy as Nick grinds down against him, and says nothing. He stays quiet on these nights, trapping moans in his throat because he’s afraid of the words that will fall out with them. Not words, names. One.

Nick smells like cigarettes and sweet cologne and it’s not really what Louis wants but he doesn’t mind it so much in the half darkness. It’s a strange combination of bittersweet pleasure and he just wants to get off and stop hating himself. 

He wonders what Harry would be like on top of him, doesn’t have to use his imagination all that much, because he knows Harry’s body like he knows himself. He wants to know the exact way his breath speeds up, the way his green eyes go dark, wants to know the secret parts of him. 

“You ready for me to open you up?” Nick asks, carding at Louis’ hair with a careful hand, the other pinning his arm to the mattress. 

Louis nods, leaning up to kiss Nick again, whining under his breath when Nick pulls back, reaching underneath the mattress for lube and squeezing it onto his fingers, reaching down to touch him.

Louis stills when he feels Nick’s fingers, throwing an arm over his mouth and biting down so he doesn’t whimper.

“So pretty.” Nick says, pressing into him with one hand, moving the other so it holds tight to his hipbone. Louis hopes it doesn’t bruise, doesn’t want any part of this stuck to him, doesn’t want to explain this to anyone. There’s nothing wrong with sleeping around, but he’s starting to think maybe he’s doing it for the wrong reasons, starting to understand that this doesn’t make the hurt go away, doesn’t make him any less lonely, doesn’t make him feel any more ready. It’s instant gratification but it’s over too fast and it doesn’t stay.

Nick pushes another finger in, scissoring them until it starts to feel something like pleasure. “You’re always so quiet.” He whispers, leaning down to press kisses to Louis’ collarbone, his fingers making Louis’ body shake. “Relax. Let yourself go.”

Louis just closes his eyes, focusing on the feeling because that’s the good part, the reason he does this. He can’t relax, can’t let anything go because the only person he’d feel right doing this with can’t know.

Nick sighs, curling his fingers until Louis can barely breathe with how it feels, his whole body too warm. “You ready, love?” 

Louis nods, fluttering his eyes open long enough to see Nick pulling a condom on and leaning over him. He takes Louis’ arm, kissing the bite mark and holding it above his head. 

Louis shuts his eyes, and tries to kid himself into believing its not because he’s picturing someone else, whining as Nick pushes into him, slow and careful, Nick’s breathing harsh against his neck.

They fuck and it’s quick and hot and Nick moans into his neck when he finally comes and that’s gratifying somehow. Louis can feel sweat on his skin where he and Nick are pressed together, and it’s over too quickly but he doesn’t mind so much.

Nick rolls off of him, pulling off the condom and wiping them off with the first tee shirt he can pick up off the floor. 

“That’s pretty gross.” Louis says quietly. “Who knows where that shirts been.”

Nick laughs, tossing it towards the laundry bin. “On me. The floor.”

“Nasty.” Louis says, reaching for his boxers and pulling them on. 

Nick crawls back into bed, swatting him. “Be nice. You staying the night?”

Louis shrugs, grabbing at the sheet and pulling it over his shoulders. He doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to face Harry or any mirrors. He wants to hide a little bit longer. He’d love to hide forever really, but that wouldn’t solve anything. He wants Harry to be his hiding place. “Do you mind?”

“Pretty boy like you? Not at all.” Nick says, giving Louis a wink, his face going serious after a moment. “You can stay here as long as you need to, I’ll make you eggs in the morning and everything.”

Louis shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just running away from things right now.”

Nick smiles. “I know a bit about that.”

Louis returns the smile, because Nick is fucked up and cynical to all hell but Louis likes him in a weird sort of way, because he’s so unabashedly himself. Louis wishes he could be like that sometimes, that he could forget about expectations and all the things he’s supposed to do. “You ever been in love?”

Nick makes a face. “Are you?”

Louis shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

Nick reaches back, turning off the fairy lights with a click. “But you want to be.”

Louis sits in the darkness for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“You’ve always been the romantic type.” Nick says, and there’s an irritatingly wise tilt to his voice, and if Louis could find him in the dark he’d hit him. “I hope whoever it is, you stop fucking around with washouts and start being with them.”

“I can’t.” Louis says stubbornly, even though he wants to. He thinks the reason no one ever feels right when he’s kissing them is because there’s only one person he’s ever really wanted to kiss.

“Never tell yourself that. That’s a shitty way to live your life, all those can’ts.” Nick says, and Louis can feel him curl up just a little closer, their bodies stealing warmth in the chill air.

“That’s really rich coming from someone who lives in his parent’s garage.” Louis says, but he’s too tired to make it a real insult.

Nick makes a non committal noise in the back of his throat. “Maybe I should’ve taken my own advice.”

“What did you want to do?” Louis asks, because he doesn’t really know much about Nick, not what he’s like on the inside.

“I wanted to do radio. Have my own show, share music with people. But I thought it couldn’t happen so I went to college and tried to get an engineering degree, because I thought that was where the money was.”

“I’m sorry.” Louis says quietly. It’s so entirely not fair, because no one deserves to have their dreams taken away from them but it seems to happen so often. He wonders if anyone ends up with what they really want, in the end. 

“Me too. But you make do.” Nick says, breathing softly in Louis’ hair. 

Louis doesn’t have an answer to that, so he tucks head into Nick’s neck and tries to sleep. Eventually, he does.

 

xx

 

The whole group has been filtering into the carnival for the better part of the late afternoon, and by the time the sun starts to drip below the horizon they’ve all arrived, forming a chattering little group by the tiny dragon themed roller coaster. The carnival is one of Harry’s favorite part of the 4th of July festivities, a close second to the fireworks, nearly pushed to first by the food.

Harry thinks that if he had to pick one thing that was quintessentially summer, if he could bottle up only one moment to keep for the winter and through the dreary spring it would be carnival night. It has a certain smell to it, funnel cake, sweetness and gasoline, freshly cut grass and dew, and a multicolor softness. The old rides creak and groan underneath the clamor and there isn’t a cloud in the purpling sky. He can hear the end of a joke sliding into a new one, the grass underneath his feet tickles his ankles in the places it wasn’t cut short enough, and it’s bliss.

“Harry, you going to win me a bear?” Niall asks, throwing his arms around Harry’s waist and nuzzling his face into the back of his shirt. 

Harry laughs, reaching to tap Niall on his head. “Maybe. You think I could win one of those games?”

Niall threads his arm through Harry’s. “Yes!”

Louis laughs behind them, coming up on Harry’s other side and reaching for his hand. “What’s this about Harry winning games?”

“I’m going to win Niall a bear.” Harry says seriously, trying not to think too much about the fingers Louis has threaded through his. They’ve been crossing touchy feely boundaries for ages, a little hand holding isn’t unprecedented, but it makes Harry feel like fireworks inside every single time.

“No way.” Louis say, tugging them towards the games all the same. “I don’t believe you.”

Harry makes a quiet little indignant noise, letting himself be dragged through the crowd, a laugh bubbling up in his throat. “I could do it!”

Louis stops them in front of the ring toss booth. “Can you?”

Niall bursts into laughter next to him, elbowing Harry in the side. “Well this is probably going to end badly, I’m going to get cotton candy.”

“Get the blue kind!” Louis yells to him as he leaves, and Harry feels as if they’ve been set up, but he doesn’t really mind. “If he doesn’t come back before you’ve won, the bear is totally mine.”

“Your confidence in my throwing skills is unexpected but appreciated.” Harry says with a smile, pushing a ticket across the table and receiving three rings in return. 

He picks one up, narrowing his eyes at the the bottle and tossing it, watching as it flies a good inch above the top. Louis giggles next to him, poking him in the side with enthusiasm. “Better luck next time, Haz.”

“Oh shut up, maybe if you weren’t holding my hand I’d be better at this.” Harry replies, but he doesn’t let go as he throws the next ring. His luck isn’t much better the second time, and Louis’ laughter continues, only softened by the way he squeezes Harry’s fingers.

“Okay, let me do the last one.” Louis says, dropping Harry’s hand to pick up the last ring, making a production of staring down the bottle and aiming before he throws. 

“Stop fucking around and throw it.” Harry says, earning himself a dour look from Louis. 

“With that attitude I’m keeping anything I win.” Louis says primly, throwing the ring with a quick flick of his wrist, sending it through the air and onto the head of the bottle with a clatter. Louis whoops, jumping onto Harry’s back with barely a warning, sending him stumbling but laughing all the same. “Victory!”

Harry spins them both around, dizzy with the motion and drunk on the feeling. “We won!”

Louis bops him on the head. “Excuse you, I won. You did terribly.”

“It was a team effort.” Harry says, reaching back to try and touch him, smiling when he tries to wiggle out of reach. “Which bear do you want?” 

The ring toss man seems largely unimpressed with their antics, sighing as Louis deliberates over the prizes. “The yellow bear.” Louis says finally, pointing at a cheery looking lemon colored bear hanging near the back.

The ring toss man reaches to grab it, handing it to Louis when he reaches his hand out excitedly. “What are you going to name it?” Louis asks, letting Harry carry him further down the row of game booths. Harry remembers coming here with his mom and Gemma, when he’d pick a plastic duck out of the pool and win a blow up sword or tiny stuffed animal. They’re good memories, tinged warm with nostalgia and the summer heat.

“I don’t know, what do you want to name it? It’s your bear.” Harry says, not thinking about how Louis’ thighs feel as he supports them with his hands and the way Louis has pressed his chest against Harry’s back. 

“No it’s not, I won it for you.” Louis says, and Harry can hear the grin on his lips.

Harry smiles, and it’s not much really, its just a cheap stuffed bear but he wants to keep it forever because Louis won it for him and Louis is lemon ice and summer days and fireflies at night. Somehow, Louis became everything.

“Thanks, Lou.” Harry says, twirling them around in the grass again. “I wonder where our friends snuck off to?”

Louis shrugs, a movement that nearly sends him to the ground, his fingers digging into Harry’s shoulders. “Probably doing carnival things. We’ll find them eventually. I want ice cream. And I want to ride the ferris wheel.”

Louis is funny, because he’s the oldest of all of them but there’s something innocent in him that he only lets out sometimes, because he’s fiercely protective and always strong but he also feels everything so much, loves the whole world so much sometimes Harry thinks he might burst with it.

“I’m fairly sure they have ice cream at the carnival. And ferris wheels.” Harry assures him, heading over to the big tent where the stalls are selling fried sweets and pizza by the slice.

“Dairy queen or baskin robins?” Harry asks, trying to ignore the way he can feel Louis breathe against his ear and the way he smells. 

“Dairy queen.” Louis affirms, sliding off his back and heading over to the stall, giving Harry a sunny smile. “They do the dippy thing? With the chocolate?”

Harry rolls his eyes, loping after him through the tramped grass. 

“I ordered you vanilla with sprinkles, that’s your favorite, right?” Louis asks, looking incredibly pleased with himself.

“Memorized my ice cream order?” Harry teases, poking him in the side as Louis hands him his, a few rainbow sprinkles falling to the ground as he takes the first lick.

“You’re predictable.” Louis replies, successfully breaking the chocolate shell around his vanilla cone, a solitary drip of ice cream sliding down his chin. “There was no way you wouldn’t want rainbow sprinkles.”

Harry shrugs, saving the top of his ice cream from falling on to the ground by shoving it into his mouth, making a face at the brain freeze that follows. They wander back towards the rides, pausing only to wave at Zayn and Perrie as they push each other around on the second level of the fun house. It’s getting darker, the only light coming from the stands and the multicolored flashing lights of the rides, filling the park with harlequin shadows.

“What do we want to ride? We haven’t done any rides yet.” Harry says, trying to keep his quickly melting ice cream from ending up on his shirt, getting it all over his hands in the process.

“We should stand in line for the ferris wheel while we have ice cream to eat.” Louis says, reaching for Harry’s hand and pulling him forward. His fingers are sticky with ice cream and Louis’ are too and he feels like they’ve stepped back in time together, that they’re going to be in this town forever and nothing will ever have to change between them. 

Louis catches him staring at their fingers, blushes, mistakes his meaning. “I didn’t want to lose track of you in the crowd.”

Harry nods, squeezes Louis’ hand because he doesn’t care what the excuse is as long as Louis doesn’t let go. “It is pretty busy.” 

“And dark.” Louis agrees, taking a generous bite out of his cone.

“You’re so small it would be hard to find you back.” Harry teases, catching a bit of ice cream with his tongue before it can drip too far, the cone crumbling in his fingers.

Louis pouts. “Just because all of your limbs are weird and oversized doesn’t mean I’m small. I’m five foot seven inches, that’s like average height.”

Harry shakes his head, pursing his lips so he doesn’t laugh. “For a girl maybe.”

Louis huffs. “At least I’m proportional!”

Harry is fairly sure Louis’ bum isn’t quite proportional, but he’s not going to bring that up. “I’m proportional.”

“You’re a monster.” Louis says, but it’s fond.

“You’re prepared to go on the ferris wheel with a monster?” Harry asks, because maybe he is a little bit, maybe he’d like to devour Louis and hide him so the world can’t take him away.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Louis says, going up on his tip toes so he can whisper, sticky lips at his ear and warm hands on his cheek. “I’m a bit of a monster too.”

And Harry thinks that if they’re lucky that works out, that Louis’ monsters cancel his out, that their demons know how to play nicely together and that means maybe they’ll be okay. 

“You’re not a monster.” Harry says, flicking Louis on the shoulder, repeating himself when he protests. “You aren’t!”

“I can be a monster if I want.” Louis says, handing their tickets to the ferris wheel woman and pulling Harry into the seat. 

“Sure you can.” Harry says, but he knows Louis isn’t, even if sometimes he convinces himself he is. “You’re the best monster I know.”

The ferris wheel lurches upwards and they find themselves higher than they know what to do with in a few jerking movements. It’s beautiful from up here, all the rides yellow and red and sparkling in a grimy sort of magic. “You can practically see our houses from here!” Louis says, sitting up as much as he can and pointing out past the park and towards their neighborhood. “I wonder if we can see any of our friends.”

“Maybe. Do you think Perrie and Zayn are still in the funhouse?” Harry asks, leaning out to look over the carnival. “I see Jade and Jesy! They’re playing the game with the water guns.”

Louis leans over him to try and catch a glimpse. “I hope they win. We can all have our own carnival bears.”

“Jesy will win. She’s good at everything.” Harry says, leaning against the corner of the seat so he can look at Louis, his face silhouetted against the black night. 

Louis smiles, reaching out to ruffle his hair with ice cream sticky fingers. Harry doesn’t mind too much, only pretends to wiggle away from him. Louis looks pretty from this high up, and Harry wishes he could blame it on the altitude, even though they’re barely 20 feet off the ground.

“What are you looking at, Haz?” Louis asks, leaning against opposite corner and staring right back, hands tapping on the side of the seat, grin just as bright as the carnival lights.

“Nothing.” Harry replies, but he’s pretty sure Louis knows the real answer.

His expression falls for a moment, something sad drifting into his eyes and if Harry wasn’t looking this hard he thinks he might have missed it, might have called it a trick of the light. He thinks that for all the time he spends with Louis, following him around since he met him, memorizing him from head to toe, he should be better at understanding him.

Louis quirks his lips into a smile, leaning in a bit closer to Harry as they creak up to the top of the ferris wheel. “You ever kissed anyone up here?” He asks, and it sounds like a dare.

“Don’t think so.” Harry says, and he hopes this is an invitation, that this means Louis is going to kiss him. He knows it doesn’t mean anything to him, that Harry is just his friend and he’ll sleep with everyone but never Harry and it hurts but he’s over it. 

Louis smiles that smile of his, the one that’s crazy and beautiful and he leans in to press his lips to Harry’s for the smallest second, and he can barely memorize the feel of it before Louis is pulling back, that grin on his face. 

“Happy ferris wheel first kiss!” Louis says, and Harry knows he’s imagined that Louis’ face is any pinker than it was when they started, that he can’t read into this because that’s how he gets hurt. 

He knows if he were brave he’d reach for Louis’ neck and pull him back in, kiss him until they were both breathless and Louis had to think of him ‘like that.’ But he’s not brave so he laughs and pretends this is the sort of thing best friends do, pretends that he can let the summer night wash away all the things he can’t tell him.

He thinks he probably shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t just let Louis pull him around, but he can still feel Louis’ lips on his and he doesn’t want to fight it. It’s a beautiful night, and he can lose himself in it.

 

xx

 

Harry is sitting on one of the blankets they brought up to the rooftop, his feet bare and his grin infectious, and Louis hopes it isn’t too obvious that he’s watching. They’ve all spread themselves out on the quilts, legs tangled in each other as they stare up at the sky and wait.

Zayn, Jesy, and Niall spit sunflower seeds off the side while the rest of them eat ice cream in the middle of the rickety rooftop, the tiny downtown area sprawling out below them. Louis can see the golden arches of the McDonalds, the light of the carnival in the distance and the little mexican place across the street. The streets have emptied out, everyone huddled in fields and backyards for the fireworks, like everything has stopped for a moment. In some ways, he thinks that’s the really important thing about fireworks, less about the explosions and more about the magic that happens when everyone ceases to exist for a moment, all eyes raised to the sky.

Louis hopes that even after they all leave for college and everything else that they can still have this, that they can sit on the roof and find each other back. 

“You still here?” Harry asks, tapping Louis on the shoulder with his first two fingers. He has that look on his face that’s concern and sweetness and Louis wants to kiss him. He thinks about why he can’t and then why he should. His mouth still stings from the ferris wheel kiss and he doesn’t think he can keep pretending it doesn’t matter to him.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Louis says, giving Harry a quick little grin. “Wouldn’t want to miss the fireworks because I was spacing out, would I?”

Harry grins, shaking his hair out and looking up at the sky. “That would practically be a tragedy.” 

“You’re too right.” Louis says, laying down next to him and staring up at the dusty blackness. Louis looks at the sky and the few lonely stars that hang there and he allows himself to sink into this moment. He’s with Harry and they’re lost in this muggy night and soon the booming will be loud enough to cover the sound of his heartbeat.

The first firework screams up into the sky and explodes in a crash of gold and blue and Harry lets out a delighted squeal that’s echoed by the rest of the group as they scramble onto the blankets in a mess of limbs. 

Louis doesn’t take Harry’s hand but their fingers brush when he leans back on his elbows and he doesn’t move them. He wonders if maybe there are other universes where he’s brave enough to take Harry’s hand, wishes he lived there instead.

He’s sneaking glances, because the fireworks look even more beautiful lighting up Harry’s face and reflected in his eyes and the blasts shake his bones when he watches him.

He just wants to be with him. He wants him. He wants to be. The fireworks fizzle and crack above them and Louis pretends he isn’t staring. 

 

xx

 

Harry’s up far too late reading the summer reading books he should have gotten to last month when he’s distracted by the soft blue glow of Louis’s phone screen catching the fingerprints on his window pane. He can’t see what Louis is doing, only the smallest bit of light, and he wants to know who he’s texting, what he’s saying to who in the middle of the night. He isn’t sure when he started to feel like this about Louis, like he was always losing him, but he hates it, doesn’t know how to fight it. 

He’s trying to ignore him, hoping the darkness across the way means Louis has gone to sleep when his phone buzzes and he digs around in his sheets to find it. 

 

12:45 Louis

I’m lonely.

 

His organs squeeze together so tight he’s afraid his body is going to stop working. He tries to catch a glimpse of Louis through his window, only sees darkness and the outline of his body underneath a single sheet. It’s too hot for blankets tonight, too quiet for lies. 

Responding is harder than it should be, anger making a rolling home in Harry’s heart and making his fingers prick like thorns.

 

12:46 Harry

Whose fault is that

 

He doesn’t send that text.

 

12:46 Harry

What do you want me to do about it?

 

He doesn’t send that one either.

 

12:48 Harry

I know.

 

He sends that one, sees the blue glow of the screen in the window he doesn’t know if he has permission to crawl though anymore.

 

12:49 Louis

I don’t like it. 

12:49 Louis

Are you lonely?

 

Harry thinks it’s not a question, just a way for Louis to make Harry say he needs him. Like his entire body doesn’t betray that already. Like no one can see the way he looks at Louis like he’s some kind of everything.

Harry wishes he had a better response, one that wasn’t ‘yes’ or ‘all the time’ or ‘why will you sleep with anyone but me.’

 

12:50 Harry

Isn’t everyone?

 

12:50 Louis

Don’t be cryptic.

 

12:50 Harry

Love me.

 

He doesn’t send that.

 

12:51 Harry

Why are you lonely?

 

He doesn’t expect an answer, not a real one, not anything that would let him anywhere near Louis’ heart or the truth. He wants to believe with all of his being that maybe Louis does love him in some strange way, even though he’ll never think of him like that. In his mind they’re star crossed lovers and he gets his happy ending. He just wants to be important, wants to know that he’s something more to Louis than just one of the planets that orbit around him. 

 

12:51 Louis

I thought too much.

12:51 Louis

Do you remember that night we watched that scary movie on TV and you couldn’t sleep for a week?

 

Harry doesn’t answer, just stares at the words like he’s trying to figure out if they’re real. He remembers, remembers the way Louis curled up in his bed with his awkward teenaged limbs and told him he’d keep watch until Harry fell asleep. He did it every night for two weeks, sat with his back pressed up against Harry’s headboard, his hand carding through Harry’s curls as he waited for sleep. Sometimes they woke up together and sometimes he woke up alone but Louis never fell asleep before him, always kept watch, keeping him safe from the monsters in his mind. They’re much scarier than the real monsters sometimes.

 

12:53 Louis

I kept watch for you.

12:53 Louis

No monsters.

 

Harry sits up in bed, scrubs a hand through his hair and sets his feet down on the wood. He crosses over to the window, opening his up and crawling across the too-close ledges to give Louis’ window two soft raps. There’s no answer for a moment, then the barely there thump of Louis’ feet on the ground and his sleep-soft face on the other side of the glass as he heaves the pane up. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, too awake for how late it is. Harry doesn’t feel like he’s awake, more like he’s dreaming.

“Returning the favor.” Harry says, padding across Louis’ floor in his boxers and crawling into Louis’ bed, resting his back against the headboard. “Protecting you from monsters.”

“These aren’t the kinds of monsters you can fight, love.” Louis says quietly, and he’s still loitering by the window like he’s the trespasser. 

“Stop that.” Harry tells him. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Louis asks, sitting down on his window sill and looking up at Harry. He’s backlit by the streetlights and the big moon outside, a silver and gold halo around his head like he’s christmas and new year and all the angels combined.

“Being melodramatic.” Harry says, and he thinks maybe it’s unkind of him to say, because he’s not the only one who hurts. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that people who run like they aren’t afraid of falling are really just running to keep themselves upright.

“Fuck you.” Louis replies, tapping his fingers on the sill. Harry can’t see his face in the shadows, but he knows Louis can see his, the way it’s lit up in the moonlight. 

Harry is the skeleton in Louis’ closet, he’s the skeleton on Louis’s bed and he feels their secrets in the air like dust motes. He wants this moment to end, wants to be 13 again and to kiss Louis before he has time to kiss everyone else. He wants to meet Louis all over again, thinks he might not fall in love with him the second time. Thinks he’d probably fall in love with him every time.

“Come to bed.” Harry says quietly, pulling the covers back and sliding down so his head is resting on Louis’ pillow. Louis doesn’t move, the shadow of him in the window unmoving. “You can’t be lonely if I’m here.” That’s not really true, because sometimes when Louis lays next to him and sees the bruises left by other lips on his neck he doesn’t truly feel like he’s with him.

“Maybe I was enjoying being lonely.” Louis says stubbornly, and Harry almost cracks a smile because he’s so damn difficult, because he knows Louis hates to be alone more than anyone else he knows, knows he can’t be left to himself for too long or he goes crazy.

“We both know that isn’t true.” Harry says. What he means is I love you. “Come to bed.”

The fan whirrs a gray melody in the corner and the night smells thick and strange around them. He can feel their imperfections like barbed wire curled around his arms, because this isn’t a movie, because neither of them are Romeo and they’d be hard pressed to find a Juliet. He doesn’t care, they die, he likes this strange romance better. 

Louis doesn’t answer his plea, just perches on his ledge and stares over at Harry like he’s turned to stone. Harry would like to reach to into his chest and pick his stone heart out, make it skip out across the lake. He thinks he could find it back even in the deep water, knows the shape of it like his own.

“What are you thinking about?” Louis asks, tapping his foot in a slow rhythm on the floor.

“Skipping stones.” Harry says.

“You’re bad at that.” Louis tells him, because they’d both tried when they were younger, hurling pebbles out into the clear lake out by the high school. Louis, his thin wrists so much more clever than Harry’s, took to it easily, his stones hopping out into the center of the pond. 

“You were good.” Harry says. “You’re better than me at everything.”

Louis shakes his head, he can see the outline of that in the darkness. “Some things.”

“I can never seem to think of anything.” Harry tells him. “Nothing important.” He doesn’t wait for Louis to put himself down again. “Come to bed.”

The reply is quicker than Harry expected, he thinks that maybe Louis was just waiting for him to say it one more time, once more to make sure he meant it. “Alright.”

He hears the sound of Louis’ feet on the hardwood and the rustle as he peels his shirt off. The mattress sinks next to him as Louis climbs in beside him, pulling the sheet over his shoulders and then up over their heads. 

“What’d you do that for?” Harry whispers, fingers pressing against the thin white fabric.

“Hiding purposes.” Louis whispers back, curling into Harry’s chest like he did so often before they started to be careful around each other. He can’t quite remember when that happened, the pull and snap of the bungee cord as they got too close and sprung away from each other like they’d been burned. He thinks they were just afraid to love each other, two stars in a binary system, orbiting closer and closer but never falling together.

“Okay.” Harry says, and he doesn’t ask Louis if he’s fine or more correctly why he’s not, just wraps him up in his arms and falls asleep beside him, the fan and their worries and their breathing and the chirping of all the smallest insects fading in the sticky nighttime. 

 

xx

 

So the thing is, Harry is standing at the door of their old treehouse and Louis is kissing a girl. There are other things, like the confessions Harry wants to spill and the anger he can feel spilling already and the single button holding her blouse on and the way Louis’ face does something very strange when he sees Harry, but the treehouse and the kissing are the really important things.

“Oh.” Is the first thing that comes out of Harry’s mouth. “Fuck.” Is the second thing.

“Harry.” Is the first thing that comes out of Louis’ mouth, and it sounds panicked and frantic in a way that doesn’t make sense because Louis is kissing a girl and Harry loves him and that’s not fair at all.

“I should go.” Harry says, even though his hands are caught on the rungs and he can’t seem to make himself move or look away. The girl has pulled herself out of Louis’ arms, her fingers doing up the buttons of her shirt as she watches them.

“No, come up.” Louis tells him, and his voice shakes like the branches do when it storms. He doesn’t want to, but he can feel himself clambering onto the wood flooring because he does what Louis says and his body does what Louis says because it doesn’t know anything else.

“I’m going to leave, I think.” The girl says, patting Louis softly on the shoulder. Harry doesn’t know why she keeps looking at him like he’s volatile and he wonders if the look on his face has betrayed everything. He thinks it must have.

“I didn’t know you brought girls up here.” Harry says to Louis as she climbs down.

Louis shakes his head, reaching one of his hands out like he’s trying to placate Harry. It doesn’t work. “No I just, it was only meant to be friendly.”

“This is our place, Lou.” Harry says, and it doesn’t mean to sound hurt but it does. “It’s ours.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.” Louis says, looking sad and sorry even with his lips kissed red and his hair a mess.

“Your hair looks stupid.” Harry says, even though Louis always looks beautiful when he’s disheveled.

“Sorry.” Louis says, pressing his messy quiff down with quivering fingers. 

“What are you apologizing for?” Harry asks, and he’s so angry at all of this, because he thought Louis was finally coming around, that they were finally going to have their happy ending. He doesn’t want to think about going back to school as a due date, but he’s terrified of losing whatever tentative claim he has on Louis’ heart and knows that when he’s two hours away Louis is going to move on, is going to forget why he ever thought Harry was something to keep close.

Louis shrugs, leaning back against the wall, his head near a drawing Zayn did and a barely visible tic tac toe game. “Not sure.”

“Well then pick something to be sorry for.” Harry says, and the words are so much crueler than he intends as they hit the air.

Louis doesn’t answer for a long moment, and Harry can feel everything crumbling, the tree house breaking apart beneath them and the memories unravelling into the world. 

Louis has sad eyes and they flash light gray when he replies. “Why are you being horrible to me?”

 _Because I love you and you break my heart every day_ seems a little too melodramatic, so Harry stumbles through until he finds some other truth to tell. “Why are you kissing people in the tree house?”

“Why can’t I kiss people in the tree house?” Louis asks, and Harry knows that downward pull of his lips, knows he’s trying not to cry. He hopes he doesn’t, hopes to God he doesn’t because if Louis cries Harry is going to have to tell him everything.

“I just- You just kiss them and they don’t matter and this matters and it’s not fair you know?” He says, and what he means is because they aren’t me and please please kiss me and he wants to cry too just so he doesn’t have to hold it all inside anymore.

“You’re not making any sense.” Louis says quietly.

“I just don’t understand. Why you’ll do anything with everyone? Because you’re always sleeping with people and you won’t even, you won’t-”

“I won’t what?” Louis asks, and he looks smaller than Harry’s ever seen him, all tanned limbs and hair thats gone lighter from all the sunlight. “What do you want me to do?”

Harry takes a breath. He lets it out. “I want-” Another breath, something caught in his throat he needs to get out. “I just want you to kiss me.”

“Oh.” 

“You don’t have to.”

A silence.

“I do, I think.”

“You don’t have to do it just to make me happy.”

“That wouldn’t be why I’d do it.

“Oh.”

Louis doesn’t move for a long moment, just stares up at him, a pensive look on his face. “Jade told me you thought I didn’t love you.”

“I know you love me. Just not, I never thought like that.” Harry says, because it’s almost too good to be true, because he always thought Louis never kissed him because he didn’t want to. Because Harry was never good enough.

“Harry, honestly.” Louis says, and there’s something gentle in his words that wasn’t there a moment ago. Harry sits on the floor so they’re eye level, criss cross applesauce like they’re kids again. “Everything is because I love you like that. More than that.”

“I love you too.” Harry says, even though he thinks Louis already knows. He thinks it doesn’t hurt to tell him anyway.

“How long?” Louis asks, reaching out to take his hands. “Just out of curiosity.”

Harry lets Louis’ fingers turn his palms upside down and right side up again, tracing his heart line, his life line, and the skin in between. “Forever. Or maybe since we were fourteen.”

“Same thing.” Louis jokes, a watery smile falling onto his face. “You should’ve told me. Maybe I wouldn’t have been such a cunt about all this.”

“I was scared.” Harry replies, and that fear isn’t gone yet, secrets rolling in his stomach that tell him Louis is going to leave him. That he’s just another fling. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me. Or if you did, it wouldn’t be forever. I don’t want,” He can’t breathe suddenly, his hands curling around Louis’ like he’ll fall if they let go. “I don’t want to be a one night stand.”

Louis doesn’t answer him, just holds green eyes in his gray blue ones. Harry doesn’t know why they’re all so afraid of everything, can’t imagine how they let themselves become so fearful. He thinks as long as Louis keeps looking at him with those soft beautiful eyes he can make himself be brave.

Louis leans in slowly, lips barely parted, eyes lidded and cheeks just the smallest bit pink. Harry wants to kiss him so hard he can’t breathe, wants to hold him so close they can’t distinguish their limbs, but he finds himself waiting for the first brush of their mouths so he can commit every nuance of this moment to memory.

They kiss slow in the afternoon heat and Harry’s skin is tacky with humidity but he can’t care, not when Louis is pressing his tongue against the seam of Harry’s lips so carefully. They kiss like they’re trying not to hurt each other, with gentle lips and hands that settle clasped in the space between their laps.

Harry knows this isn’t the end of this, that they still have to clear the swamps they’d let grow between them, but he no longer feels like everything is in transit. They’ve reached their stop, it’s time to be home.

 

xx

 

Louis isn’t quite sure how they managed to fit everyone into Jesy’s van, enormous as it is, but one way or another they managed to get all the way to the drive in movie without anyone dying. He considers it a victory. 

Liam and Jade are camped out in the trunk while the rest of the crew is sprawled on blankets and chairs, a campy horror movie playing on the big screen.

Louis and Harry are perched on top of the car, legs dangling through the sunroof and hands intertwined. It still doesn’t seem completely real, the fact that he can hold Harry’s hand without feeling guilty, the fact that he doesn’t have to imagine how Harry’s body feels anymore because he knows.

They talked about everything after the tree house, about leaving and staying and college and how it’s not really important in the end. Harry will visit sometimes and Louis will visit sometimes and they’ll skype until their whispers slur and they’ll be okay. In the end, it was so easy to give into this, to let himself love Harry like he always wanted to.

“Everything okay?” Harry whispers, and that’s when Louis realizes he’s been staring.

Louis nods, leaning over to kiss Harry’s cheek just for the way it makes his face light up. “Just thinking. About us.”

“What about us?” Harry asks, a frown on his face. It reminds Louis of the expression he’d had on his face when Louis told him he was afraid Harry would find someone better. He’d shaken his head, curls bouncing as he kissed Louis hard on the mouth. There’s no one better than you, he’d said fiercely, not for me.

“About how lucky I am to have you.” Louis whispers into the static darkness, blushing before he can help it. He can just see the blurry outline of Harry’s face in the light from the screen and he’s smiling at him with sunshine in his eyes.

The summer is ending around them, August days that slip through their hands like sand from a sieve, and he wants to clamber down from the van and throw his arms around all of his friends and never let them leave. He holds Harry’s hand tighter instead, holds in his heart the idea that they can do this, that what they have won’t really change when they all go off to college, even if Louis has to stay here.

“Thankyou.” Harry says quietly, reaching up to cup Louis’ jaw and not caring who sees.

“For what?” Louis asks, smiling up at him because they both already know the answer to that question.

Harry just kisses him.

_Everything._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked it! You can find me on the tumblies @ infinitylourry or fattietakesthecake if u want more of dis fun.
> 
> Every time you comment/kudos my sad cynical heart swells five sizes maybe even six


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